Individualism is great but it often lacks the authenticity that follows cult-like worship and idealogues. Why must we maintain labels that don’t often serve a bigger picture?
Your personality is not your brand. It ebbs and flows.
Consider this.
In today’s world, we are exposed to a vast array of content that shapes our tastes and preferences. With social media and the internet, we have access to a seemingly infinite number of choices. As a result, we have become increasingly individualistic, forming unique personalities that are a product of the content we consume. However, it’s essential to understand that our personalities are not our brands, and they ebb and flow. It’s crucial to acknowledge that we will never be able to fully open up to anyone.
The idea of individualism has led to a push for acceptance and a fight towards it. While accepting things that should never have been normalized, we may also allow room for some particularly wild preferences, leaning into occultist, isolatory, or outright selfish motives as “Just” and “What’s stopping you from doing the same?”
However, we need to see that this sort of individualistic, ideal life pattern just emboldens arguments on either side – libertarian and conservative. Often, these patterns exist as a paradox (or a multitude) of personalities within a single person.
Are you where you claim you want to be?
We need to assess how much of our personality is conducive to being close to those we wish to be close to. We need to realize that it’s not just left vs. right, or authoritarian vs. libertarian anymore. In fact, those categories are abused for their past definitions and current contradictions on a daily basis. This leads to more dysphoria, widespread imposter syndrome, and everyone flinging around the “No True Scotsman” fallacy not to assess one’s own value in the larger scale of things, but to discredit someone else’s valid perspectives. All because of some cognitive dissonance?
This leads to an even more pronounced culture of A La Carte Individualism.
What’s the solution to Individualism?
It’s essential to abandon the labels we accidentally wear, or be okay with redefining them. We also need to be kinder to differing perspectives that don’t immediately affect us. We need to be aware of what immediately affects us and work on finding what drives and nourishes us (read: Drive and Fuel) as well as how we can find a sense of purpose within the world.
Check out some other articles that help you achieve this. How we can find our ‘fit’ within the world, and how our personality affects what it is that we do. Also, how it affects others! Your end goal may be someone else’s starting point, and that’s perfectly alright. On the contrary, someone else’s starting point may be your end goal, and that is also very fitting!
We need to recognize that personality is fluid and changes over time. It’s not something that is set in stone. And so too, do others follow a path less taken where it concerns what truly concerns them.
If you got any of that, share this article with someone you love having a love/hate relationship with. And open two sets of eyes to the consequences of having Individualistic approaches in today’s world!
Until next time.
